The Marvel way: How Fortnite plans its seasons years ahead of its actual release

Not only does Fortnite work on collaborations with Marvel, but it plans its storylines far in advance. Epic had plans for the Galactus event, seen last season, long before The End, which destroyed the game's initial island to make way for Chapter 2.

While Fortnite's direction often seems chaotic and random, it is well thought out. There are tons of hints, callbacks, and call forwards sprinkled through each event.

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Fortnite's future plans are already in place

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"...felt this re-organising of reality and was like 'huh, there's this energy source at the centre of everything and if I can consume that, I can consume not just the Marvel reality but I can consume everything.' "

These were the words of Donald Mustard, head of Fortnite at Epic Games, from an interview last year regarding The End and what attracted Galactus to Fortnite.

This level of pre-planning is something Marvel Studios is very familiar with, planning its movies and plotlines so far ahead of time that it boggles the mind.

In the same interview, Mustard also explained that Fortnite has "many, many, many years" of storyline planned out.

"I'm going to create a world where the island is the main character. So I'm going to treat the island like that traditional arc, and we've planned it that way."

While Fortnite's plan is not as granular as Marvel's, all the big beats are there. Often the finer details are decided by player speculation and rumors online. This way of planning keeps Fortnite a living and breathing world.

While it may be hard for many to believe Fortnite's story is planned so far in advance, think about how much time and negotiation is involved in securing the license for a collaboration.

One does not get the rights to use The Predator, The Terminator, The Walking Dead, and GI Joe overnight. These deals take a long time to come to fruition, and then there is development time, testing, and so much more.

The Walking Dead

The characters that players see in the game now may have been a year or more in the making. The longer Epic plans their plot, the more time they have for gathering the resources to enact those plans.

This long-term plan is very similar to how Marvel plans their plotlines and individual scenes in a movie long before shooting starts or the script has even wrapped.